Favorite Poems/Poets

[A Man has Patrol Duty]

Everybody who's been through high school knows who Sylvia Plath is, but I always thought her husband Ted Hughes was the superior poet:

BRIDE AND GROOM LIE HIDDEN FOR THREE DAYS

She gives him his eyes, she found them

Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin

He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her

She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists

They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully

And sets them in perfect order

A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired

She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing

Incredulous

Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them

So that his whole body lights up

And he has fashioned her new hips

With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled

He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily

To test each new thing at each new step

And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull

So that the joints are invisible

And now he connects her throat, her breasts and the pit of her stomach

With a single wire

She gives him his teeth, tying the roots to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment

Like two gods of mud

Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care

They bring each other to perfection.

[Sci-2]

Everybody who's been through high school knows who Sylvia Plath is, but I always thought her husband Ted Hughes was the superior poet:

BRIDE AND GROOM LIE HIDDEN FOR THREE DAYS

Wow. Incredibly good poem, thanks for posting that!

=-=-=

The moment

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.

-- Margaret Atwood

[Old-Growth]

A couple of days late but I hope not a couple of dollars short:

On the idle hill of summer,

Sleepy with the flow of streams,

Far I hear the steady drummer

Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder

On the roads of earth go by,

Dear to friends and food for powder,

Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten

Bleach the bones of comrades slain,

Lovely lads and dead and rotten;

None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,

High the screaming fife replies,

Gay the files of scarlet follow:

Woman bore me, I will rise.

A. E. Houseman

A Shropshire Lad, No. XXXV

Somehow our Veterans Day poems turn out to be rather anti-war. I wonder why. Perhaps it is that the holiday comes from the Great War, the which was great only in the loss of life, and in the sheer stupidity of the way in which it was general'ed.

(One might also append the poem by Thomas Hardy that I posted earlier: "Channel Firing".)

This poem was given a memorable setting by George Butterworth, who also died in the Great War.

Here is a decent performance of the same:

Michael Dewis, Baritone

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SfYu4ScO3ug

And here is the wiki page for the composer:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Butterworth

[Little Red Riding Hood]

I want to share this satirical poem of the Great among the Greatest: Don Francisco de Quevedo;(written around 1603, but still relevant today) where, this celebrated writer of the Spanish Golden Century, teases and condemns to the power given to the money, above the people:

“Powerfull knight is mr. Money” / “Poderoso caballero es don dinero”

Madre, yo al oro me humillo,
Él es mi amante y mi amado,
Pues de puro enamorado
Anda continuo amarillo.
Que pues doblón o sencillo
Hace todo cuanto quiero,
Poderoso caballero
Es don Dinero.

Nace en las Indias honrado,
Donde el mundo le acompaña;
Viene a morir en España,
Y es en Génova enterrado.
Y pues quien le trae al lado
Es hermoso, aunque sea fiero,
Poderoso caballero
Es don Dinero.

Son sus padres principales,
Y es de nobles descendiente,
Porque en las venas de Oriente
Todas las sangres son Reales.
Y pues es quien hace iguales
Al rico y al pordiosero,
Poderoso caballero
Es don Dinero.

¿A quién no le maravilla
Ver en su gloria, sin tasa,
Que es lo más ruin de su casa
Doña Blanca de Castilla?
Mas pues que su fuerza humilla
Al cobarde y al guerrero,
Poderoso caballero
Es don Dinero.

Es tanta su majestad,
Aunque son sus duelos hartos,
Que aun con estar hecho cuartos
No pierde su calidad.
Pero pues da autoridad
Al gañán y al jornalero,
Poderoso caballero
Es don Dinero.

Más valen en cualquier tierra
(mirad si es harto sagaz)
Sus escudos en la paz
Que rodelas en la guerra.
Pues al natural destierra
Y hace propio al forastero,
Poderoso caballero
Es don Dinero.

(I found this fairly good translation of Thomas Walsh)

(Ah!,”Traduttore= tradittore”…) :

“Powerfull Knight is Mr. Money”/Lord of the Dollars

Mother, unto gold I yield me,
He and I are ardent lovers;
Pure affection now discovers
How his sunny rays shall shield me!
For a trifle more or less
All his power will confess,
Over kings and priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

In the Indies did they nurse him,
While the world stood round admiring;
And in Spain was his expiring;
And in Genoa did they hearse him;
And the ugliest at his side
Shines with all of beauty's pride;
Over kings and priests awl scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

He's a gallant, he's a winner,
Black or white be his complexion;
He is brave without correction
As a Moor or Christian sinner.
He makes cross and medal bright,
And he smashes laws of right,—
Over kings and priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

Noble are his proud ancestors
For his blood-veins are patrician;
Royalties make the position
Of his Orient investors;
So they find themselves preferred
To the duke or country herd,—
Over kings and priests and scholars,
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars!

Of his standing who can question
When there yields unto his rank, a
Hight-Castillian Doña Blanca,
If you follow the suggestion?—
He that crowns the lowest stool,
And to hero turns the fool,—
Over kings and priests and scholars,
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

On his shields are noble bearings;
His emblazonments unfurling
Show his arms of royal sterling
All his high pretensions airing;
And the credit of his miner
Stands behind the proud refiner,
Over kings and priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

Contracts, bonds, and bills to render,
Like his counsels most excelling,
Are esteemed within the dwelling
Of the banker and the lender.
So is prudence overthrown,
And the judge complaisant grown,—
Over kings and priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

Such indeed his sovereign standing
(With some discount in the order),
Spite the tax, the cash-recorder
Still his value fixed is branding.
He keeps rank significant
To the prince or finn in want,—
Over kings and Priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

Never meets he dames ungracious
To his smiles or his attention,
How they glow but at the mention
Of his promises capacious!
And how bare-faced they become
To the coin beneath his thumb
Over kings and Priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

Mightier in peaceful season
(And in this his wisdom showeth)
Are his standards, than when bloweth
War his haughty blasts and breeze on;
In all foreign lands at home,
Equal e'en in pauper's loam,—
Over kings and priests and scholars
Rules the mighty Lord of Dollars.

[Old-Growth]

LRRH: This is a less savage denunciation than Timon's speech against gold in Timon of Athens, Act IV, scene III. Perhaps it is more effective for that reason.

[Old-Growth]

St. Cecilia is the Patron Saint of music. This poem in her praise was set by Benjamin Britten for unaccompanied chorus. I once sang in a performance of the same and this poem and that music have accordingly have a special meaning for me. (And never mind that praise of music---this kind of music anyway---is always welcome to me.

Important reminder: Counting the day there are only 13 more shopping days left to Beethoven's Birthday (16 December) .

Here is the wiki page for our saint:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Cecilia

Hymn to St. Cecilia

W. H. Auden

Part I:

In a garden shady this holy lady

With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,

Like a black swan as death came on

Poured forth her song in perfect calm:

And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin

Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,

And notes tremendous from her great engine

Thundered out on the Roman air.

Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,

Moved to delight by the melody,

White as an orchid she rode quite naked

In an oyster shell on top of the sea;

At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing

Came out of their trance into time again,

And around the wicked in Hell's abysses

The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Part II:

I cannot grow;

I have no shadow

To run away from,

I only play.

I cannot err;

There is no creature

Whom I belong to,

Whom I could wrong.

I am defeat

When it knows it

Can now do nothing

By suffering.

All you lived through,

Dancing because you

No longer need it

For any deed.

I shall never be Different.

Love me.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Part III:

O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,

O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,

Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all

The gaucheness of her adolescent state,

Where Hope within the altogether strange

From every outworn image is released,

And Dread born whole and normal like a beast

Into a world of truths that never change:

Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.

O dear white children casual as birds,

Playing among the ruined languages,

So small beside their large confusing words,

So gay against the greater silences

Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,

Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,

Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,

Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

O cry created as the bow of sin

Is drawn across our trembling violin.

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.

O law drummed out by hearts against the still

Long winter of our intellectual will.

That what has been may never be again.

O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath

Of convalescents on the shores of death.

O bless the freedom that you never chose.

O trumpets that unguarded children blow

About the fortress of their inner foe.

O wear your tribulation like a rose.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Now for some you tube links.

Tenebrae:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1P6c7SdHAak

Kings College Choir Cambridge:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VUgsaVMUdQM

World Youth Choir:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBOre9MGOrY

The Cambridge Singers

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h7GSygUXlUI

[Little Red Riding Hood]

LRRH: it is more effective for that reason.

ujum, Old-Growth , in fact 400 years after having been written,

the chorus "Powerfull Knight is Mr. Money" became in a popular saying in the Spanish-speaking until today.

[Disputatious]

It is still Xmas day here in central Texas; for a few more minutes at least. So here is a poem by Edward Mörike---German with translation:

Sohn der Jungfrau, Himmelskind! Am Boden,

Auf dem Holz der Schmerzen eingeschlafen,

Das der fromme Meister, sinnvoll spielend,

Deinen leichten Träumen unterlegte;

Blume du, noch in der Knospe dämmernd

Eingehüllt die Herrlichkeit des Vaters!

O wer sehen könnte, welche Bilder

Hinter dieser Stirne, diesen schwarzen

Wimpern sich in sanftem Wechsel malen!

Sohn der Jungfrau, Himmelskind!

Son of the Virgin, child of Heaven, lying on the floor

asleep on the wood of suffering

that the pious painter has placed -a meaningful allusion - under your gentle dreams;

You flower, even in the bud, darkling and sheathed,

still the glory of God the Father!

O, who could see,behind this brow, these dark lashes,

what softly-changing pictures are being painted!

Son of the Virgin, child of Heaven!

Hugo Wolf turned this into one of the more lovely songs that there are, so it is off to you tube to copy over some links. One purports to show the painting that the poet wrote about, so I will fetch that first.

Sami Luttinen. Bass-Baritone:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8nvv9luwixE

To sing this our bass-baritone (bass?) must lower the pitch by at least a third: some how that does not sound right to me; but I am used to the original pitch.

Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, Soprano

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NbYELjMyzlk

This is mono, from 1953, but her voice is youthful and she winds thru Wolf's sinuous melody with a lovely legato. This is the pitch that Wolf originally wrote: one reason why this song is usually sung by a soprano.

About that painting: it seems that there are two paintings "of the school of Albani" which show the Christ child lying on a cross of which the second shows the infant part way sitting up; so it seems from the poem that it must have been the first painting that Mörike saw.

Here is the wiki page for the painter:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Albani

(So it may be that Albani himself did not paint the picture that inspired the poem, but rather someone in his studio or circle. I hope that this does not turn out to be something like one of the puzzles that occasion many a thread, and many an argument, in the general sub-forum.)

[Disputatious]

Post in progress, patience please.

As I was reminded earlier today, the 6th of January is the last of the twelve days of Xmas and is the day for the Feast of Epiphany, celebrating the arrival of the three wise men / three kings to Bethlehem to visit Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Goethe wrote a witty poem about this, and Hugo Wolf composed a charming setting for the same. Poem first, and links to You Tube to follow.

Die heiligen drei König mit ihrem Stern,

Sie essen, sie trinken, und bezahlen nicht gern;

Sie essen gern, sie trinken gern,

Sie essen, trinken und bezahlen nicht gern.

Die heiligen drei König sind kommen allhier,

Es sind ihrer drei und sind nicht ihrer vier:

Und wenn zu dreien der vierte wär,

So wär ein heilger Drei König mehr.

Ich erster bin der weiß und auch der schön,

Bei Tage solltet ihr erst mich sehn!

Doch ach, mit allen Spezerein

Werd ich sein Tag kein Mädchen mir erfrein.

Ich aber bin der braun und bin der lang,

Bekannt bei Weibern wohl und bei Gesang.

Ich bringe Gold statt Spezerein,

Da werd ich überall willkommen sein.

Ich endlich bin der schwarz und bin der klein,

Und mag auch wohl einmal recht lustig sein

.Ich esse gern, ich trinke gern,

Ich esse, trinke und bedanke mich gern.

Die heiligen drei König sind wohlgesinnt,

Sie suchen die Mutter und das Kind;

Der Joseph fromm sitzt auch dabei,

Der Ochs und Esel liegen auf der Streu.

Wir bringen Myrrhen, wir bringen Gold,

Dem Weihrauch sind die Damen hold;

Und haben wir Wein von gutem Gewächs,

So trinken wir drei so gut als ihrer sechs.

Da wir nun hier schöne Herrn und Fraun,

Aber keine Ochsen und Esel schaun,

So sind wir nicht am rechten Ort

Und ziehen unseres Weges weiter fort.

Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, Soprano:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5c-3KPtBKfo

This is from 1953, as was the above performance of "Schlafendes Jesuskind".

Elly Ameling, soprano:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3NEm2Junnis

So we go Dutch with this one (no apologies for that horrible play on words, besides, I think she was a wonderful singer.)

[Angalin]

The boy who nearly won the Texaco Art Competition

by Joe Kane

he took a large sheet

of white paper and on this

he made the world an african world

of flat topped trees and dried grasses

and he painted an elephant in the middle

and a lion with a big mane and several giraffes

stood over the elephant and some small animals to fill

in the gaps he worked all day had a bath this was saturday

on sunday he put six jackals

in the world and a great big snake

and buzzards in the sky and tickbirds

on the elephants back he drew down blue

from the sky to make a river and got the elephants

legs all wet and smudged and one of the jackals got drowned

he put red flowers in the front of the picture and daffodils in the bottom corners

and his dog major chewing a bone and mrs murphys two cats tom and jerry

and milo the milkman with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth

and his merville dairy float pulled by his wonder horse trigger

that would walk when he said click click and the holy family

in the top right corner with the donkey and cow

and sheep and baby jesus and got the 40A bus

on monday morning in to abbey street to hand

it in and the man on the door said

thats a sure winner

[Sci-2]

Josh Ritter - The Curse (music video):

He opens his eyes
Falls in love at first sight
With the girl in the doorway
What beautiful lines
Heart full of life
After thousands of years, what a face to wake up to

He holds back a sigh
As she touches his arm
She dusts off the bed where til now he's been sleeping
Under mires of stone
The dry fig of his heart
Under scarab and bone
Starts back to its beating

She carries him home
In a beautiful boat
He watches the sea from a porthole in stowage
He can hear all she says
As she sits by his bed
And one day his lips answered her
In her own language
The days quickly pass
He loves making her laugh
The first time he moves it's her hair that he touches
She asks "Are you cursed?"
He says "I think that I'm cured."
Then he talks of the Nile and the girls in? bull rushes?

In New York he is laid
In a glass covered case
He pretends he is dead
People crowd round to see him
But at night she comes round
And the two wander down the halls of the tomb
That she calls a museum
But he stops to rest
Then less and less
Then it's her that looks tired
Staying up asking questions
He learns how to read
[- From: http://www.elyrics.net -]
From the papers that she is writing about him
Then he makes corrections
It's his face on her book
More come to look
Families from Iowa
Upper West-Siders
Then one day it's too much
He decides to get up
Then as chaos ensues he walks outside to find her
She is using a cane
And her face looks too pale
But she's happy to see him
As they walk he supports her
She asks "Are you cursed?"
But his answer is obscured
In a sandstorm of flashbulbs &
Rowdy reporters

Such reanimation
The two tour the nation
He gets out of limos
Meets other women
He speaks of her fondly
Their nights in the museum
She's just one more rag now he's dragging behind him
She stops going out
She just lies there in bed
In hotels in whatever towns they are speaking
Then her face starts to set
And her hands start to fold
Then one day the dry fig of her heart stops its beating

Long ago on the ship
She asked why pyramids
He said "Think of them as an immense invitation."
She asks "Are you cursed?"
He says "I think that I'm cured."
Then he kissed her and hoped
That she'd forget that question

[Gaston de Foix]

I haven't read every page of this thread but has anyone mentioned Les Murray?

Performance

I starred that night, I shone:
I was footwork and firework in one,

a rocket that wriggled up and shot
darkness with a parasol of brilliants
and a peewee descant on a flung bit;
I was busters of glitter-bombs expanding
to mantle and aurora from a crown,
I was fouettés, falls of blazing paint,
para-flares spot-welding cloudy heaven,
loose gold off fierce toeholds of white,
a finale red-tongued as a haka leap:
that too was a butt of all right!

As usual after any triumph, I was
of course, inconsolable.

[Gears of the Beast]

Ozymandias by Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I first read the poem on an English exam when I was like 13. I had no idea what it meant but a couple of years later I came across it again and realised how awesome it is. I dislike most poetry but this is just a fucking masterpiece.

[The Killer Snark]

It's an excellent poem. Alan Moore has a lot to be thanked for, for helping to introduce

that poem to many people who may not necessarily have heard it yet.

It crops up in Watchmen prominently. I'd feature Adonais here, except it's far too long

to paste.

To BRooklyn Bridge

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest

The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,

Shedding white rings of tumult, building high

Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes

As apparitional as sails that cross

Some page of figures to be filed away;

--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights

With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene

Never disclosed, but hastened to again,

Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced

As though the sun took step of thee, yet left

Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--

Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft

A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,

Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,

A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,

A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;

All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .

Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,

Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow

Of anonymity time cannot raise:

Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,

(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)

Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,

Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift

Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,

Beading thy path--condense eternity:

And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;

Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.

The City's fiery parcels all undone,

Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,

Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,

Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend

And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

Hart Crane

[Larry of the Lawn]

This one was my favorite for awhile a long time ago:

Slanting Light

by Arthur Sze
Slanting light casts onto a stucco wall
the shadows of upwardly zigzagging plum branches.

I can see the thinning of branches to the very twig.
I have to sift what you say, what she thinks,

what he believes is genetic strength, what
they agree is inevitable. I have to sift this

quirky and lashing stillness of form to see myself,
even as I see laid out on a table for Death

an assortment of pomegranates and gourds.
And what if Death eats a few pomegranate seeds?

Does it insure a few years of pungent spring?
I see one gourd, yellow from midsection to top

and zucchini-green lower down, but
already the big orange gourd is gnawed black.

I have no idea why the one survives the killing nights.
I have to sift what you said, what I felt,

what you hoped, what I knew. I have to sift
death as the stark light sifts the branches of the plum.

[Disputatious]

White-Luck Zombie:

Free association strikes again!

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons---

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes---

Heavenly Hurt it gives us---

We can find no scar,

But internal difference

Where the Meanings, are---

None may teach it---Any---

'Tis the Seal Despair---

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air.

When it comes, the Landscape listens---

Shadows---hold their breath---

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death.

Emily Dickenson

[Larry of the Lawn]

White-Luck Zombie:

Free association strikes again!

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons---

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes---

Heavenly Hurt it gives us---

We can find no scar,

But internal difference

Where the Meanings, are---

None may teach it---Any---

'Tis the Seal Despair---

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air.

When it comes, the Landscape listens---

Shadows---hold their breath---

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death.

Emily Dickenson

I do love me some E.D. from time to time!

[Angalin]

This one was excerpted in Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, whose Code Name Verity I can't recommend enough.

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

[Gears of the Beast]

Speaking of Emily Dickenson, here's my favourite poem by her:

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,

The maddest noise that grows,—

The birds, they make it in the spring,

At night’s delicious close.

Between the March and April line—

That magical frontier

Beyond which summer hesitates,

Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead

That sauntered with us here,

By separation’s sorcery

Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,

And what we now deplore.

We almost wish those siren throats

Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart

As quickly as a spear,

We wish the ear had not a heart

So dangerously near.

[The Killer Snark]

I've never read that one. I'm guessing it's an early poem on account of its lack of most of her usual idiosyncracies. This following is not my favourite, which I already posted ("I cannot live with you"), but it is a classic:

I started Early — Took my Dog —
And visited the Sea —
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me —

And Frigates — in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands —
Presuming Me to be a Mouse —
Aground — upon the Sands —

But no Man moved Me — till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe —
And past my Apron — and my Belt —
And past my Bodice — too —

And made as He would eat me up —
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve —
And then — I started — too —

And He — He followed — close behind —
I felt his Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle — Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl —

Until We met the Solid Town —
No One He seemed to know —
And bowing — with a Mighty look —
At me — The Sea withdrew —